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LETTER 



THE REBELLION, 



A CITIZEK OF WASHINGTON, 



A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 



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PHILADELPHIA: 

C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS. 
18 62. 







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The following Letter was written, five months ago, in the 
course of a friendly and familiar correspondence with a promi- 
nent and very estimable citizen of Washington. In addition 
to the subjoined note from Mr. Yaux, the writer was re- 
quested, and even urged, to publish the Letter, some time 
since, the gentleman to whom it was addressed giving his con- 
sent. But he did not think it could add anything to all that 
had been so much better said and written by others, on the 
same great subject, and refrained from publishing it. 

He has determined now to let it go for what it raaj be 
worth. The interval that has elapsed since the Letter was 
written, may at least serve to show that the writer has evinced 
no anxiety, and been in no hurry, to get into print. 

Though the first part about the "Trent" be not applicable at 
this moment, the writer feels as much confidence now, as he 
did then, in the soundness of the sentiments, and in jiublishing 
the Letter, prefers to publish it entire. 

B. E. 

MorNT Airy, 31st May, 1862. 



• • 



My dear 8ir : * 

Yesterday I heard of a letter written by you not long since 
to a friend in Washington, said, by a mutual frieud who saw 
it, to possess peculiar interest just now. It contains, as I hear, 
most intei'esting extracts from the writings of Southern states- 
men on the Constitution and the Union, and also gives your 
exposition of your father's views on the same subject, and 
what you suppose would have been his opinions in the present 
crisis. 

A wish has been expressed that a copy of this letter should 
be furnished for private circulation and perusal of those who 
feel an interest in this subject. 

Thus prefatory let me just ask if you have any objection to 
furnish a copy of this letter, or would your correspondent 
object? 

Always very truly your friend, 

EiCHAED Vaux. 

PuiLADELPUiA, 30th January, 1862, 



To Benjamin Hush, 1']sq., 

MOU.NT Aiuv. 



LETTER. 



Mount Airy, near Philadelphia, 
2Cth December, 1861. 

My dear Sir : 

You rightly attribute to me, in your very friendly 
and gratifying letter of the 23d November, the authoi- 
ship of the articles I lately put under cover to you in 
" The Press," signed " An American Citizen," justifying 
and applauding the act of Captain Wilkes in the cap"^ 
ture of the Eebel envoys. The articles do not at all 
merit all you say of them, but 1 am very glad to find 
that you concur with me in the sentiments they imper- 
fectly embody, as indeed I was very sure you would. 

That the case of the "Trent," is in effect the case of 
the " Caroline" over again, in all its main features, 
with the single difference, that in the latter, the result 
was accomplished with unexampled savage barbarity, 
while in the former, the forbearance of the American 
Commander was as conspicuous as his patriotism, no 
one can seriously doubt. In the case of the " CaroHne," 
a large armed British force stealthily invaded, in the 
middle of the night, an American steamboat, moored 
to the American shore, jumped on her deck like demons, 
surprised, maimed, and slaughtered the unarmed sleep- 
ing crew and passengers ; set fire to the vessel, and 
sent her in flames headlong over the Falls of Niagara ! 
Was there ever such an outrage ? The off'ence was, 
that the steamboat had been employed on that day, in 
conveying men and munitions of war from the Ameri- 



6 



can to the British frontier, to assist the Canadian 
rebels. But what sort of Prize Court was that into 
which Britain took the offending vessel 1 Verily, she 
made short work of it, for she sought only the foaming 
cataract. Our remonstrance she treated with scorn, 
A quarter of a century has well-nigh elapsed, and it 
remains to this hour unanswered ! We pocketed the 
affront, for we felt that enormous, and most inhuman 
and unjustifiable as was the measure of retaliation, we 
were to blame in the outset. The good sense of the 
country prevailed in the end, and the affair was eventu- 
ally forgotten. 

But now the tables are turned. Britain, in utter 
violation of her Sovereign's Proclamation of Neutrality, 
extends the convoy and protection of her flag to two 
of the acknowledged leaders of a great rebellion in 
this country, proceeding, with a retinue, to European 
shores, to seek the aid of Europe in promoting the dis- 
memberment of our Empire. A spirited officer of the 
American Navy, learning the facts, intercepts the vessel 
on the Idgli seas, and while abstaining from any in- 
dignity to the British Flag, and treating with markcnl 
consideration, and even courtesy, the rest of the passen- 
gers and crew, simply causes the avowed Rebel emissa- 
ries, and a part of their retinue, to be removed on board 
his ship, to be dealt Avith as tlic Government of the 
United States should direct ; the Britisli ship being 
detained only long enougli to effect their removal, and 
immediately suffered to proceed. 

Such, in a word, is the case of the " Trent," as com- 
pared with the case of tlie " Caroline." Yet it has 
been whispered for a week, that the rumored deuiands 
of Britain for " reparation," and the restitution of the 
persons of the Pebel envoys to \hv ])rotection of her 



/ 
I 



flag, on the alleged ground that their removal from a 
British deck was an affront to Britain, and in violation 
of puhhc law, — demands made while her fleets and 
armies are behoved to be actually hovering off* our 
very shores, and bristling with preparation for the 
alternative,— that these demands are to be immediately 
compHed with by our Government. 

Should such rumored demands and whispers prove 
well founded, may the future historian of America jus- 
tify to posterity this act of the nineteenth century. In 
one respect, indeed, and one only, posterity may suffer 
it to pass. Anything ; yes ! anything, no matter what, 
to enable the Government effectually to put down the 
Rebellion, and forever re-estabhsh the supremacy of 
the Constitution and Union. , I certainly did not help 
to make Mr. Lincoln Preside^it. I am of the Demo- 
cratic Party, and have been all my life, and did all I 
could to prevent his election. But he is the President 
now, and his duties, responsibihties and difficulties are 
stupendous. Let no honest Democrat embarrass him 
now, while he battles manfully with these. If even this 
great sacrifice be necessary to the mighty consumma- 
tion, let us submit to it. Goldsmith, in dedicating to 
Johnson one of the most celebrated of the creations of 
his genius, says: -'By inscribing ihis sUgld perform- 
ance to you, I do not mean so much to compliment you 
as myself r Should the genius of America dedicate to 
mankind a similar drama, less from apprehension of a 
foreign foe, than from an inflexible determination to 
preserve now, at any cost, the integrity of her own 
Empire, " She Stoops to Conquer'' may yet be played 
upon a far broader theatre than England dreams of, 
and with corresponding results to mankind. 

I say this in no feeling of blind hostiUty to England, 



or as a mere eclio of the outcry which would denounce 
her on all occasions. I have no such feeling towards 
her. I have passed too many years of my life in that 
country, and mingled too long and intimately with her 
people, of whom I have too many agreeable recollec- 
tions, not to be able to estimate properly the greatness 
of the one, and high qualities of the other. But while 
I would render every just tribute to that nation whose 
language we speak, and whose spirit and pride we in- 
herit, I know enough of her to be quite sure that she 
will respect us the more, as we respect ourselves, and 
this I trust we shall never cease to do, whatever be the 
issue of this case of the Trent. I consider lier whole 
course in the case to have been most unjustifiable, and 
the amiable and enlightened Queen of England, at one 
time admitted as much, in her dignified rebuke to some 
of her overheated ministers. 

That the articles I sent you have been the means of 
reviving a correspondence, to me always so agreeable, 
and now so long neglected, is the only merit I can claim 
for them, but this at least I may fairly regard as the best 
evidence that they have accomplished one good result. 

Though now beforehand with me, I assure you it has 
been in my thoughts repeatedly since this wicked re- 
bellion began, to take the pen to you for a few of the 
reflections which, crowding at first upon the mind with 
the rapidity and novelty belonging to such an unnatural 
event, stunned, while they startled, the great body of 
the American people ; whicli now so overload it and op- 
press the lieart with their accumulated weight of in- 
dignation as of sorrow, that it is difiicult to say which 
feeling is uppermost in contemplating the enormities 
already perpetrated by the instigators and instruments 
of the crime ; and wliich reflections, \n liile the stupen- 



9 



dous iniquity may well demand, as it has received, the 
triumphant exposure and scathing condemnation of the 
highest intellects in the land, will equally find vent from 
the tongues and pens of the humblest. ^ Hence, I will 
not let the old year go out— a year which, in after ages, 
will be referred to as the darkest, but will yet, I believe,' 
precede the brightest and most exultant period of Ame- 
rican history— without recalling myself to you by this 
letter, as well to thank you very sincerely for yours, as 
to give expression to a few of those thoughts as they 
occur to me, however imperfect and inadequate. 

Your allusions to my late father are in the spirit of 
your warm friendship for him, and are very grateful to 
me. Yours and his was a friendship of many long 
years ; a friendship he greatly valued, as he did the 
qualities of his friend, for he well knew, as I knew, 
that the former was as disinterested as sincere ; that it 
was independent of, as it outlived, his public stations, 
though for nearly a quarter of a century public station 
was his lot, and that in the latter, he ever found con- 
genial sentiments. You are now among the very few 
left with whom I can indulge such reflections, and you 
will not be surprised that I address myself to you now, 
and on such topics as these, with pecuKar interest. 

How my fa^'aer, who, as a boy, remembered the ma- 
jestic presence of Washington here in Philadelphia- 
who, from his youth up, cherished for that mighty name 
a veneration, which so ripened with reflection and 
knowledge that it became in after years like the faith of 
the martyrs, for I have heard him say he believed that 
if ever Providence could have been supposed to permit 
to mortals a connecting link to higher and purer intel- 
ligences, that link was Washington; who, as a young 
man, was first caUed to the public service by Mr. Madi- 



1* 



10 

son, and grew np with a reverence for his wisdom, list- 
ening in the counsels of his cabinet, and tlie intimacy 
of his private friendship, to those calm and clear expo- 
sitions of the Constitution which have been revived 
with such an overwhelming power of truth during the 
past year, and whom he got to indicate, in his own 
handwriting, on the leaves of a copy of The Federalist, 
now in my library, the identical articles he there wrote, 
with occasional manuscript notes to some ; who, for 
twelve years, served under those great men and pa- 
triots, Monroe and John Quincy Adams, and stood up 
for Jackson with all the energy of his character and 
strength of his pen, as far as he possessed these, when 
Jackson crushed Nullification, though up to that time 
politically opposed to him ; who was the colleague of 
Clay in John Quincy Adams's cabinet, and had always 
the highest appreciation of Webster ; and whose highest 
admiration for those great names was that they were 
among the pillars of the Union ; who has left it on re- 
cord, on innumerable occasions, that at all times, and 
under all circumstances, at home, abroad, in peace, in 
war, under all administrations, llepublican or Federal, 
Whig or Democratic, our first and last and highest duty 
is to that Union ; and among whose last aspirations on 
human subjects, as I and others of his family, seated by 
his bedside, heard them from his feeble lips as life was 
ebbing, were the glory and perpetuity of that Union ; 
how my father, had he lived to witness the scenes of 
the past twelve months and those now passing, would / 

have indignantly thought and felt, and spoken and j 

written, and acted under them all; what he would 
have thought of the preposterous and monstrous doc- 
trine of Secession, its authors and teachers ; how \iv 
would have exposed tlu^ miserable pretexts and subter- 



/ 






11 



fuges et id juggler 1/ omne of those who are now seekmg, 
under the guise of that doctrine, to grasp power by the 
destruction of this nation ; how he would have done 
all this, and more, for he was not afraid of them, and 
they knew it, you probably can tell as "well as any one 
now living. 

Yet my father was always the friend of the South. 
It w^as natural that he should be so. He married at 
the South, not in the remote region first steeped in the 
suilt of this rebellion, but still in a Southern State. He 
was first called into the public councils by Southern 
men. Some of his earliest, longest, and most agreeable 
associations were with the eminent names I have re- 
called. Several of his children were born, and all first 
reared, surrounded by influences, connections, and de- 
lightful early friendships, that centred in Southern 
homes, Avhich they have since cultivated and cherished. 
And he saw and felt, as hundreds of thousands of others 
in the great North and West and Middle, saw and felt, 
(fifteen hundred thousand, says Mr. Holt), that the 
South had been wronged by the fanatical discussions in 
Congress and elsewhere, and the infamous Abolition 
press of the country, for more than twenty years ; and 
therefore he stood up for the South, as it was right he 
should do, as long as the South teas the injured party. 

I inherited his predilection, but with it a predilection 
for a sentiment, which I can even now recall, as with 
kindling eye and emphasis, and often in tones of emo- 
tion, h was wont to enforce it upon his sons, even in 
the days of boyhood. It was the sentiment of Decatur, 
one of the noblest ever uttered : Our Country, right 
OR WRONG. Can it be doubted, that had he lived, he 
would have been in this deplorable contest for The 
Union, right or wrong, for he had no other Country : 



12 

he would have felt the decision in his pulse, as Fisher 
Ames said ; that if right, he would have insisted that it 
was the solemn and paramount duty of all to sustain and 
preserve it ; if wrong, that it was no less the solemn and 
paramount duty of all to correct the wrong, through 
the medium of the Constitution and the Laws. Above ' 
all, that with the Supreme Court and Congress on its 
side, and at that time a million and a half of voters in 
the non-slaveholding States, the conduct of the South 
in 1860, in undertaking to redress her grievances by 
breaking up the Union, was in the highest degree un- 
reasonable, fanatical, treasonable, and criminal, and 
that it deserved the severest infliction of the " rod," 
which even in 1786, Mr. Jefferson said the States would 
have to see, and perhaps to feel.* 

The veneration I inherited as above for the great 
Union which alone made us a Nation was stronger than 
any other sentiment. Hence the first shot that boomed 
across Charleston harbor, on the 12th of April last, as 
it reverberated to these shores which first echoed the 
shouts of the 4th July, 1776, and the 17th September, 
1787, scattered to the winds the predilections of a life- 
time for that entire portion of our country, which had 
thus dared to erect itself in open and shameless revolt 
against that far greater, and more glorious, and more 
beloved Union. 

The defensive power possessed by tlic Soutli in Con- 
gress, in the very first article of the Constitution, pro- 
viding that representatives and direct taxes should be ) 
apportioned among the States, on the same basis of / 

/ 
* Mr. Jefferson writin<^ to Mr. Monroe, lltli August, 1780, / 

saj'S : " Tlic States niust Bee the rod ; jiei'liaps it imist be lelt 
by some of them." 



II 



population, — the " iliree-fifths of all otlier i:)ersoyis^'' 
clause, — a power generously conceded to her by the 
North, as Mr. Everett has shown, without compensa- 
tion ill the Presidential election, was of itself sufficient 
to protect the South against all the alleged encroach- 
ments, for all time, of all the other sections of the 
Union. That she should have voluntarily surrendered 
this power by the treasonable withdrawal of her Sena- 
tors and Representatives from Congress last December, 
and at the beginning of this year, like the refusal of 
some, who remained, to vote on propositions of com- 
promise, is only another proof of her predetermined 
purpose to break up the Union, and destroy the 
Government. 

Let me for a moment recall what is said by the ac- 
complished Orator of New England under this striking- 
view of the subject, in his elaborate and masterly oration 
in New York, on the 4tli of July last : 

" What number of representatives, beyond the pro- 
portion of their free population, the South has elected 
in former Congresses, I have not computed. In the 
last Congress she was represented by twenty members 
in behalf of her slaves, being nearly one-eleventh part 
of the entire House. As the increasing ratio of the 
two classes of the population has not greatly varied, it 
is probable that the South, in virtue of her slaves, has 
always enjoyed about the same proportionate represen- 
tation in the House in excess of that accruing from her 
free population. As it has rarely happened, in our po- 
litical divisions, that important measures have been 
carried by large majorities, this excess has been quite 
sufficient to assure the South a majority on all sectional 
questions. It enabled her to elect her candidate for 
the Presidency in 1800, and thus effect the great poll- 



14 

tical revolution of that year, and is sufficient of itself 
to account for that approach to a monopoly of the Go- 
vernment, which she has ever enjoyed." 

You may well speak as you do of Mr. Holt, to whom 
I had occasion to refer in one of the puhlished articles 
I sent you. He well deserves all you say of him. 1 
think, with you, that he is one of our very first men. 
His great ahiUties as a speaker and writer, and his 
knowledge on all subjects, are equalled only by his un- 
pretending modesty; and his heroic devotion to the 
cause of the Union, and lofty patriotism, will secure for 
him a lasting place in the liearts of his loyal country- 
men.* 

A Southern man, born and reared under Southern 
institutions, and surrounded all his life by Southern in- 
fluences, Mr. Holt has been gifted with power to soar 
beyond the contracted realm of Southern sophistry, and 
with courage to proclaim and maintain his position. 
He has spoken out for tlie Union in a tone not less 
convincing than commanding, and, like Everett and 
Motley, has conclusively shown that the high intellect 
of the nation, its power and strength of argument, its 
educated and polished mind, its most eloquent tongues, 
all its most profound and disciplined pens, are as un- 
mistakably enlisted in behalf of the Union, as the un- 
counted hosts who, from the forests of Maine to the 
limits of Western Virginia, and his own Kentucky, 
have sworn to prescr^'e it, and now stand forth every- 
where, a mighty phalanx, ready to seal that oath witli 
the blood of patriots and lieroes. 

* I am intoruu'd that Mr. Holt's -Tciit speech in Now York, 
at the Irving Ihill, was rca<l ah)ud at social asseinblagcs in 
Philadelphia, and received Avith emotion, as well it may have 
been. 



15 



Kentucky and Western Virginia ! Western Alrginia 
and Kentucky ! Henceforth they will be of the crown 
jewels of the land ! Tremendous have been the exer- 
tions to seduce them from their allegiance, and nobly 
has each, like Maryland, Missouri, and Eastern Ten- 
nessee, dashed aside the treacherous cup. All honor to 
the heroic sons of each and all those patriot Com- 
monwealths. Truly have they risen up in the judg- 
ment with this generation of the South, and have con- 
demned it. In Western Virginia it would really seem 
as though the mighty spirit of Washington, like the 
descending sun, had lingered last, if not longest; and 
was now animating the hearts and minds of the people 
with a glory similar to the parting rays of that lumi- 
nary, when all nature reflects its transcendent splen- 
dors, and is gorgeously lighted up with the crimson 
and gold of the horizon. 

Oh no! This great Federal Union, at first that 
•' little speck," immortahzed by Burke, ^' scarce visible 
in the mass of the national interest— that small seminal 
principle, rather than a formed body,"— was never born 
of Revolution, cradled in suff"ering, and reared to such 
vigorous manhood as to have achieved "in the course 
of a single life," as Burke predicted, the "progressive 
increase of improvement brought on by varieties of 
people, a succession of civilizing settlements, and a 
commerce which attracts the envy of the world," which 
it took England " seventeen hundred years" to grow 
to—such a nation could never, never have been born 
\ to die so soon. True, we are noAv grievously afflicted, 

\^ and sorely tried, and in words that have scarce passed 

from the lips of a distinguished divine, of whom this 
city is proud, " the kings of the earth shake tlie liead, 
and shoot out the lip, and laugh us to scorn." But wc« 



\ 






16 



are, after all, only passing through those " constant and 
sliarp antagonisms,^' which the same eloquent minister 
of God's word, has shown to he the law of all growing- 
things, " The eagle's mighty wdng," as he beautifully 
has it, " is nerved by tlie hurricane. Human progress 
is ever like that of a ship beating to windward in the 
'sery eye of the tempest. Even Christianity, from its 
rude cradle, down through all its mighty triumphs in 
long antiquity, has fulfilled the same law, and grown 
strong through antagonisms. So that the consumma- 
tion of God's most stupendous purpose, was achieved, 
not by the ministry of singing angels, but through 
human antagonisms, luitlt treachery and a cross."" 

Oh, no! The Union, thrice favored of heaven's most 
exuberant promise, is not dying. It will survive even 
the tremendous conflict now raging, and unborn gene- 
rations will celebrate its restored ascendency. " All 
empires," says the same profound and philosophic states- 
man, who held up to Lord Bathurst that dazzling vision, 
•■• have been cemented in blood." Our empire cannot 
expect to escape ; and while we had fondly hoped, at 
one time, that no such cement would be needed to its 
internal and domestic structure, and recoiled from such, 
it has been made too painfully manifest now, that 
" blood must be mingled with the sacrifices" made to 
preserve it. But it will be preserved ; yes, to distant 
ages, and will be stronger and more beloved than ever, 
as dear-bought experience shall have confirmed its in- 
estimable blessings, and the initokl miseries of their 

loss ; 

'• Vuv it so falls out, 
That ^^•]lat "we liavo. \vr prize not to (lio worth, 
Whiles Ave enjoy il ; lnit heiiiij; laek'd an<l lost, 
Wliy then wc rack the value; then we hml 
The virtue, that possession would not show us 
Whiles it Avas ours." 



n 



No wonder that those brave fellows, inured to battle 
and storm, who helped to achieve the late brilliant vic- 
tory at Port Royal, icept when they first saw the old 
flag once more run up on the soil first polluted by the 
rebellion.* 

Among these blessed results, the hitherto and now 
fiercely opposing sections of our country will come to 
know each other as never yet before, and one to enter- 
tain and manifest for the other a much loftier and more 
enduring respect. The South will have discovered that 
the high qualities she has heretofore professed to value, 
reside among those who have not heretofore made daily 
boast of them ; that trutli, courage, the sense of honor, 
the quick instincts of gentlemen, the refinements of 
cultivated and polished intercourse, all those graces of 
character and charms of life, of which, with some self- 
complacency, they had supposed themselves sole pos- 
sessors, are indigenous to Northern breasts and North- 
ern homes. The North in turn will do justice to the 
South, when the latter shall have discovered her great 
error, and atoned for her great crime, in seeking to dis- 
solve the mighty Union which has heretofore nurtured 
and protected her, and from which alone she has de- 
rived her chiefest glory. The calm judgment of pos- 
terity, in contemplating the towering edifice of our 
national greatness, will be the splendid eulogy of Hume 
upon his country, in the closing chapter of his history, : 
" Threatened and actual rehellion only demonstrated pa- 
ramount loyalty and jjatriotism." 

* '• When they saw the flag flying on shore, the ti'oops were 
powerless to cheer, but wept." See letter from that dis- 
tinguished and gallant officer, Commodore Dupont, to the 
Assistant Secretary of the I^avy, dated, U. S. Frigate Wa- 
bash, Port Eoyal, S. C, November 9, 1861. 



1! 



It has been shown again and again that a settled 
determination to break np the Union has existed at the 
South for many years. Yet it is no less certain that 
the speakers and writers of the South have sinned not 
only against light and knowledge, but against all their 
own previous convictions, repeatedly expressed and re- 
corded. It is really curious to recall now a few, a very 
few, of the tributes paid in former days to the Consti- 
tution and the Union on the soil and in the very atmo- 
sphere since desecrated and darkened by the terrible 
opening scenes of this great rebellion. Truly, indeed, 
has Mr. Everett observed, that " it is the Soutli wldcli 
has cliaiKjecl. not the Nortli'' 

In a discourse delivered in Concert Hall, Charleston, 
South Carolina, on the 4th of March, 1813, by Ben- 
jamin Elliot, a member of the '76 Association, after 
stating that " the object of our Association is to aid in 
supporting the principles of our Government, and to 
teach Americans to love their Constitution more from 
reason than prejudice^' the orator reviews the causes of 
attachment to our Government, and dwells in grateful 
language on the memory of its founders. " Such a 
Government" he continues, " is p>ermanent. There is a 
pride in protecting oar own ivorhs. The scidptor loould 
immortalize the marhle to which he has given form ^ 

In the same oration Britain is denoiniced for having 
'"'■jplotted the severance of the Union" and the orator elo- 
quently exclaims, "^ who can utter his emotions on the 
prohcd)ilitij of this tremendous occurrence, must want the 
full sensibilitTj of an American" 

In the following year, 1814, Ilobcrt Y. Ilaync was 
the orator of the same Association, and delivered on 
the 4th of July, before tlie inhabitants of Charleston, 
S. C, an animated address. 



19 



Almost its opening words are a tribute to " our com- 
7)1071 parenf (the Union), and an indignant rebuke to a 
whisper of disunion, " Bui have we not heard an orator 
in a sister State exclaim^'' says Mr. Hayne, " that he icas 
ready to exchange our Government for the British Con- 
stitution^ monarchy and all. • The benefits of our Union 
have heen questioned^ and toe ewe called ujjon to establish 
by reasoning, lohat once rested on the basis of universal 
public feeling. It may not, therefore, be improper, on 
this occasion, briefly to consider the high privileges of our 
country.''^ 

In 1818, Henry Laurens Pinckney, as the represen- 
tative of the same Association, dehvered a similar pa- 
triotic oration on the -Ith of July of that year. Kindred 
sentiments pervade it throughout. ^^ Where 71010,'" ex- 
claims the speaker, " is the impious hand which pointed 
to the sid)mission and dissolution of our empire f 

If these were very young men at the time, of which 
I know nothing, at least there is no immaturity in the 
sentiments or language of either, but, on the contrary, 
a correctness and beauty, and it is very clear that they 
must have imbibed from good fountains. 

When General Lafayette visited Savannah, in 1825, 
as the guest of the State of Georgia, the Mayor in his 
address of welcome spoke of our form of Government 
as " the proudest monument of human ivisdom and vir- 
tue.'" Has it changed; or have the people of Georgia 
changed ^ 

The first regular toast at the great dinner on that 
occasion was, " The Constitution of the United States'' 
Is it not the same now '? 

At a 4th of July dinner in Pendleton, South Caro- 
lina, while Mr. Calhoun was Vice-President of the 
United States, a distinguished Southern statesman gave 
the following toast: 



20 



" The State and General Governments ; each imperfect 
when viewed as separate and distinct Governments^ but, 
taken as a lohole, forming one system, with each checJdng 
and controlling the other, unsurpassed hij any icork of 
man in wisdom and sid)limity" 

One can hardly realiz^ now that such a sentnnent 
was ever uttered or listened to in South Carolina; still 
less that Vice-President Calhoun himself was its author ! 
Amono^ the most enthusiastic of Mr. Callioun's ad- 
mirers and supporters at that day and earlier, few men 
were more conspicuous tlian Mr. McDuffie, of South 
Carolina. His sentiments 'were identical. Hear what 
Mr. McUuffie said in 1821, in an Essay entitled, "Na- 
tional and State Rights Considered :'' 

" The General Government is as truly the Government 
of the ivhole people as a State Governmeid of part of the 
people. Its Constitution, in the language of its preamble, 
ivas ordained and established by the p)eop>le of the JJniied. 
States. 

" What security, then, did the Convention, in other 
words the people of the United States, provide, to re- 
strain their functionaries from usurping powers not 
delegated % Was it by the discordant clamors and laio- 
less resistance of the State rulers, thai they intended to 
insure domestic tranquiUify and form a more perfect 
Union? 

" 'The State Governments have no politiccd powers not 
C07isistent iviih the Constitution of the United States.^^ 
Again : 

" It is not, therefore, a regard to the riglits of the 
people, and a real apprehension that these rights are 
in danger, that have caused so much to be said on the 
subject of prostrate State sovereignties and consolidated 
empire. It is the ambition of tliat class of 2)olilicia}is, 



21 



icJio expect to figure only in tlie State councils^ and of those 
States tcho are too proud to achnowJedge any superior." 

Again : 

" We have more cause of apprehension from the States 
than from the General Government; in other icords, there 
is in our system a greater tenxiency to disunion than to 
consolidation." 

Elsewhere, in the same Essay, " Our happy Union" 
is spoken of by Mr. McDuffie as comprehending " all 
that constitutes the happiness of individuals or the glory 
of a nation.''^ Mr. McDuffie soon became one of the 
most prominent statesmen of South CaroUna, in Con- 
gress, in the Senate, and as Chief Magistrate of the 
State. The above are the sentiments of eternal truth. 
Has Truth changed, or have the people of South Caro- 
lina changed I 

The statesmen of Virginia in denouncing the pro- 
ceedings of the Hartford Convention, half a century 
ago, stigmatized " Secession" as " treason." If they 
were right then, what are they now ? 

Were I to continue the record of similar opinions, 
which might be greatly extended, you would be amazed, 
familiar even as you are with the opinions, on most sub- 
jects, of most of our leading men from all parts of the 
country for so many years. 

There is yet one great name, that of the sixth Presi- 
dent, whose " great relations to this entire Union," la- 
boring as he did unceasingly for " Avhatever, in his 
judgment, was best for the interests, honor, and per- 
petuity of his country, the venerable representative of 
the memories of another age," I quote the language of 
Mr. McDowell, of Virginia, in announcing his death to 
the House, give to his opinions at this time the weight 
of the highest authority. It will be conceded that 



22 



America has produced few statesmen of more profound 
and universal knowledge, or of loftier and more ex- 
panded patriotism, than John Quincy Adams. 

A Discourse on " The Jubilee of The Constitution," 
delivered by Mr. Adams iiefore the New York Histo- 
rical Society, on the 30th April, 1839, closes with an 
aro-ument in favor of the Constitution of the United 

o 

States so overwhelming, and of such beauty and elo- 
quence, that it would be difficult to find, in the range 
of thought or expression, anything anywhere to sur- 
pass, if even to approach, it. He recapitulates his ar- 
gument in eleven distinct sections, and thus concludes : 

" And now the future is all before us, and Providence 
our guide. 

" When the children of Israel, after forty years of 
wanderings in the wilderness, were about to enter upon 
the promised land, their leader, Moses, who was not 
permitted to cross the Jordan with them, just before 
his removal from among them commanded that when 
the Lord their God should have brought them into the 
land, they should put the curse upon INIount Ebal, and 
the blessing upon Mount Gerizim. This injunction 
was faithfully fulfilled by his successor, Joshua. 

" Immediately after they had taken possession of the 
land, Joshua built an altar to the Lord of whole stones 
upon Mount Ebal. And there he wrote upon the 
stones a copy of tljie law of Moses, which he had written 
in the ])resence of the children of Israel ; and all Israel, 
and their ciders, and officers, and their judges, stood 
on the two sides of the Ark of the Covenant, borne by 
the priests and Levites, six tribes over against Mount 
Gerizim, and six over against Mount Ebal. And he 
read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, 
according to all that was written in the book of the law. 



/ 



/ 



23 



" Fellow Citizens, the Ark of your Covenant is the 
Declaration of Independence. Your Mount Ebal is 
the confederacy of separate State sovereignties^ and your 
Mount Gerizim the Constitution of the United States. 
In that scene of tremendous and awful solemnity, nar- 
rated in the Holy Scriptures, ^ere is not a curse pro- 
nounced against the people upon Mount Ebal, not a 
blessing promised them upon Mount Gerizim, which 
your posterity may not suffer or enjoy from your and 
their adherence to, or departure from, the principles 
of the Declaration of Independence, practically inter- 
woven in the Constitution of the United States." 

May the terrible conflict now raging speedily result 
in the re-establishment of that glorious Constitution, 
with all its solemn guarantees, as it came to us from 
the hands of its illustrious founders ; and in the spirit 
and words of the resolutions of another of Kentucky's 
patriot sons, the venerable and honored Crittenden, 
adopted by Congress with such unanimity in July last, 
may the Union be restored and preserved " icith all the 
clignity, equality, and riglds of the several States unim- 
paired.^'' 

That the patriot hosts who now swell the disciplined 
armies of the Union to an extent to which history 
affords no parallel, animated by this spirit and deter- 
mination, will achieve results which will terminate in 
this blessed and glorious consummation, and exalt the 
renown of this country to a pinnacle it has never yet 
reached, is, I believe, ultimately certain. 

Accept all I could say of cordial good wishes for 
yourself and the members of your family, at this other- 
wise happy season, and believe me. 

My dear Sir, with very sincere regard. 

Ever most truly yours, 

Benjamin Rush. 



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